More subjective: describes a problem or condition from the point of view of those experiencing it. More objective: provides observed effects interpreted by researchers of a program on a problem or condition.
More in-depth information on a few cases. Less in-depth but more breadth of information across a large number of cases. Unstructured or semi-structured response options. Fixed response options. It is used to quantify opinions, attitudes, behaviors, and other defined variables with the goal to support or refute hypotheses about a specific phenomenon, and potentially contextualize the results from the study sample in a wider population or specific groups. As quantitative research explicitly specifies what is measured and how it is measured in order to uncover patterns in — for example — behavior, motivation, emotion, and cognition, quantitative data collection is considered to be much more structured than qualitative methods.
Quantitative techniques typically comprise various forms of questionnaires and surveys , structured interviews as well as a behavioral observation based on explicit coding and categorization schemes.
All of these quantify the behavioral processes in such a way that numerical results can be obtained — for example, fixation duration from eye tracking representing the amount of visual attention , the number of GSR peaks indicating the amount of physiological arousal or the power of a specific EEG band.
After data collection, quantitative analysis techniques and statistics can be applied, such as t-tests and ANOVAs, to non-parametric methods.
This often necessitates much bigger sample sizes compared to qualitative research but allows you to make more solid conclusions, that are backed up with data. Ultimately, whether to pursue a qualitative or a quantitative study approach is up to you — however, be sure to base your decision on the nature of your project and the kind of information you seek in the context of your study and the resources available to you.
Qualitative will offer you an in-depth understanding of your research problem and hopefully help answer your hypothesis. Quantitative will allow you to scale your research to provide larger sets of data for reliability and validity. A combination of the two provides you with objectivity. Objectivity is the most general requirement and reflects the fact that measures should come to the same result no matter who is using them. Also, they should generate the same outcomes independent of the outside influences.
For example, a multiple-choice personality questionnaire or survey is objective if it returns the same score irrelevant of whether the participant responds verbally or in written form.
Further, the result should be independent of the knowledge or attitude of the experimenter, so that the results are purely driven by the performance of the respondent.
A measure is said to have a high reliability if it returns the same value under consistent conditions. There are several sub-categories of reliability. For most research topics you can choose a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approach.
Based on the answers you get you can ask follow-up questions to clarify things. You transcribe all interviews using transcription software and try to find commonalities and patterns. You conduct interviews to find out how satisfied students are with their studies. Through open-ended questions you learn things you never thought about before and gain new insights. Later, you use a survey to test these insights on a larger scale. The method of analysis differs for each type of data.
Quantitative data is based on numbers. Simple math or more advanced statistical analysis is used to discover commonalities or patterns in the data. The results are often reported in graphs and tables. Qualitative data is more difficult to analyze than quantitative data. It consists of text, images or videos instead of numbers. Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.
Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses. Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail. In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question. The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question.
Data collection is the systematic process by which observations or measurements are gathered in research. It is used in many different contexts by academics, governments, businesses, and other organizations. There are various approaches to qualitative data analysis , but they all share five steps in common:.
The specifics of each step depend on the focus of the analysis. Some common approaches include textual analysis , thematic analysis , and discourse analysis. Have a language expert improve your writing.
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